Zeppelin

thingiverse

This is a recreation of the famous airship, Graf Zeppelin LZ 127. It's not an exact replica or to scale, but rather a creation for fun. The model looks more like a flat whale than the actual airship, but I tried my best. Everything on the model is made in proportion to the size of the real airship except for the engines. My printer can't print them small enough, so I made them bigger and used them as stands. Remember to scale everything up by 200% when printing! The LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin was a German-built and operated passenger-carrying hydrogen-filled rigid airship that operated commercially from 1928 to 1937. When it entered commercial service in 1928, it became the first commercial transatlantic flight service worldwide. It was named after Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a German count who pioneered airships. During its operating life, the airship made 590 flights covering over 1.7 million kilometers (over 1 million miles). It was designed to be operated by a crew of 36 officers and men. The LZ 127 was the longest rigid airship at the time of its completion and was only surpassed by the USS Akron in 1931. It was scrapped for fighter plane parts in 1940. Remember to scale everything up by 200% when printing! Directions for assembling the model: 1. Print the tail twice and the nose twice. 2. Print the cabin. 3. Print the fin file four times with supports. 4. Print the nose nacelles (engine pods) four or five, depending on how many engines you want to have. 5. Print the Nacelle caps with rafts attached; this will be important later. 6. Once the main body tail and nose parts are printed, glue the two nose ones together as well as the tail portions. See pictures if you need help. 7. Glue both body portions together into one larger unit. 8. Glue the cabin underneath the nose of the airship, making sure it fits perfectly in the U-shaped bridge of the nose. 9. Glue the fins on the tail with the pointy parts pointing inward; see pictures for reference. 10. Now glue the buttons with rafts still attached to them onto the nacelles, so they look more like engines. 11. Glue the nacelle supports to the middle of the nacelle; see pictures, it will help. You may need to grind or sand some parts down so it fits better. 12. Glue these supports so that the propellers are facing towards the back of the airship. 13. I glued them in positions so they act as stands; the rafts should be strong enough to support the entire weight of it, and they should be level with the bottom of the cabin as well as the underneath rear fin for extra support. 14. Wait for all glue to dry and then finely sand everything down so it looks nicer. I didn't do this with my model, but you can melt some PLA with a blowtorch or heat gun to fuse the major parts together, so they don't leave lines where you glued the body pieces together.